Scot McKnight reviews James Emery White’s new book on Jesus Creed. I read Scot’s review and scanned the book on Amazon preview.
Sigh. I’m sure this is unfair, but books like this make me want to convert to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. For all of Dr. White’s emphasis on Truth, pragmatism, orthodoxy and the Church, the problem with Evangelicalism has been that its fundamental tenet of foundationalist Biblicist inerrancy is obviously untrue and unworkable, its doctrinal emphasis has ignored the historic center of Trinitarian orthodoxy, and it has no functional ecclesiology through which to mediate theological understanding. It’s not working and it’s losing influence because it’s fundamentally broke. (Note: I am using the term “Biblicist inerrancy” to distinguish this from the sort of “functional infallibility” that I think is a more appropriate model for Biblical authority. See my comments on Billy Graham and Charles Templeton below).
White sounds the gong of the “correspondence” theory of Truth. There are enormous epistemological issues over the “correspondence” view of Truth, various ways of construing it, and so on. These are deep waters. Sorry, but it’s grossly inadequate for a non-philosopher theologian just to say the word “correspondence.” It becomes a distracting fight. Many serious theologian-philosophers (e.g. Nicholas Wolterstorff) have demonstrated why foundationalist-correspondence theories of Truth are inadequate from a Christian perspective.
White talks about orthodoxy and doctrine but at least from the preview I could see doesn’t really offer a basis for defining what is finally and absolutely orthodox, other than an apparently softer version of the Biblicism that is now dramatically failing Evangelicalism.
As an example, he tells the famous story of Billy Graham and Charles Templeton. Templeton takes Biblical criticism and scholarship seriously, and loses his faith. Billy pietistically says “God, this is your word, and I believe it,” and goes on to become Billy.
If evangelical faith is going to survive, it needs to bring Billy and Charles together. A correspondence theory of truth tied to Biblicistic inerrancy simply is a failure unless one has the capacity, like Billy, to put intellectual concerns on the shelf and focus on pragmatics. I’m not knocking Billy here at all — maybe many people are designed by God and called take Billy’s approach, and they don’t need to do the difficult work required for serious scholarship.
But we are living in a time when the average American is far better educated, far better connected, far more cynical, and far more savvy than in Billy’s heyday of the 1950’s. Evangelicalism will be dead within the next generation if the best it can muster is the same common-sense, naive, foundationalist Biblicism that caused it to lose its credibility in the first place.
I do appreciate White’s emphasis on the virtue of civility, however. That alone can go a long way.
3 replies on “James Emery White on the Crisis in Evangelicalism”
Do you have a replacement for this “foundationalist Biblicist inerrancy”? You said “functional infallibility”, and I can kinda understand what that means, but I’m still left with more about what you think is wrong with Evangelicism than where it ought to head.
I’m really struggling with finding any sort of “third way” or middle ground between traditional, conservative Evangelicism and traditional liberalism. I’m much more of a conservative person by nature and inclination so liberalism doesn’t appeal much to me, but I do certainly see many significant weaknesses in the current state of Evangelicism.
What would you say are the top 3 or so issues moving forward and do you have any leads on how we might bring Charles and Billy together?
Good questions Jordan. Top three issues… Hmmm…
1. Maturing in our theology of the nature and function of scripture. If we have to deny the reality of the kinds of texts we have, and we can’t offer a robust theology of scripture with the texts God actually gave us, no one should listen. (NT Wright’s little book “The Last Word” is a good intro). The relationship between scripture and the natural sciences is an obvious hinge here.
2. Maturing in our relationship to culture. We need to learn to practice a nuanced process of hearing God’s voice in culture. If we act like white middle class guys in their 50’s have all the answers, no one should listen. (James Davidson Hunter’s latest book is one good resource here). And if our highest cultural “achievement” is Christian pop radio, no one should listen.
3. Maturing in our ecclesiology, soteriology, missiology, and eschatology. (Ok, that’s a whole bunch rolled into one!). We need a more robust theology of how God works in and through and in advance of the Church towards the reconciliation of all things in Christ. If we limit God’s redeeming work to visible individual decisions of faith, our methods will be coercive and our worldview mostly hopeless. If we limit the sacraments to occasional remembrances, we won’t function robustly as the Church. If we limit eschatology to rescue, we won’t engage in robust mission. (Darryl Gruder’s “Missional Church” is a good resource here).
I could think of more, but those are three.
3.
As I sure you would agree, it would be wise to suspend judgment on White’s book until it is actually read. An initial blog post by Scot (he has several more scheduled on the work), and a review of what’s available on Amazon, is hardly sufficient. I am rather familiar with White (e.g. his book Serious Times, and A Mind for God). I also happen to know that he wrote his entire doctoral thesis on the concept of truth (his first published book). So….maybe let’s wait and actually read it this before we discard it. 🙂